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Tag Archives: doctor-patient relationship

Dear Canada, Respect for Conscience is Fundamental to Health Care

Rachael Wong is a lawyer from Auckland who is currently working as a legal consultant with the Law Reform Commission in Samoa. She has recently completed a Master of Bioethics and Health Law for which she wrote her dissertation on freedom of conscience in health care. She maintains that a health professional’s exercise of conscience is inseparable from their delivery of health care. Writing for First Things, Wesley J. Smith …Read More

A Good Death is a Gift

Dr Samantha Murton, an NZHPA member and General Practitioner from Wellington, reflects on a recent death in her family. I was busily involved in our own personal experience of a gracious death with my Mother-in-Law. If I could say something now to the Health Select Committee on its Investigation into the Ending of One’s Life, it would be this. Knowing all that I know as a health professional, it was …Read More

Palliative Care is Everyone’s Business

Dr Lucia Mitchell is a General Practitioner and Palliative Care Doctor who works in Richmond, Nelson, New Zealand. She shares with us her submission to the Health Select Committee on the investigation into ending one’s life in New Zealand. I oppose any legalisation of euthanasia or assisted suicide in New Zealand. Death has in many ways been distanced from our daily lives and has become foreign, unfamiliar and feared. Health …Read More

Doctors Say No to Assisted Suicide

The NZHPA strongly encourages all New Zealand doctors to sign the Open Letter published by the Care Alliance opposing medical involvement in euthanasia and assisted suicide. The Care Alliance’s press release and Open Letter are re-published below: Wednesday, 9 December 2015, 3:47 pm Press Release: Care Alliance Doctors say no to assisted suicide New Zealand doctors are being invited to add their name to an Open Letter rejecting medical involvement …Read More

The Right to Freedom of Conscience

By Neil Vaney Introduction A recent post from Terry Bellamak, new president of the Abortion Law Rights Association of New Zealand (ALRANZ), questions why health professionals such as doctors and nurses should be legally able to use the claim of freedom of conscience in refusing to provide contraceptive or abortion advice or services. (http://wp.me/x1XY6w-z1, 14 Sep 2015). Bellamak likens this to the case of Kim Davis, county clerk of Rowan …Read More

Some Inspiration for Your Submission

Want to make a submission to the Health Select Committee on the investigation into ending one’s life in New Zealand, but not sure where to start? Carolyn Moynihan, a journalist who supports the work of NZHPA, has written this excellent submission: 8 November 2015 Submission on: The investigation into ending one’s life in NZ To: The Health Select Committee From: Carolyn Moynihan I wish to make the following general comments: …Read More

Dutch Euthanasia Rate Continues to Rise

According to the 2014 Annual Report by the Netherlands’ regional euthanasia review committees, there were 5,306 reported cases of assisted dying in 2014, a 10% rise on the previous year, and double those reported in 2009 (2636). A spokesman for the review committees said that the increase may be due to a growing social acceptance of euthanasia. On this shift in public opinion, Professor Theo Boer – a member of …Read More